We’ve already established that Montmartre is the best arrondissement to stay in, well away from the crowds of the Champs Elysee and the Eiffel Tower. There’s also a village feel up here, so rather than another cafe breakfast let’s explore the market options.

Now I don’t care what your clean eating plan says about carbs – in Paris, you eat bread, and at Le Grenier a Pain (or any of the boulangeries in this area) your hardest choice will be limiting your selection.

Perhaps also a croissant? To mix with the cheeses we’re going to purchase and the slices of ham. Add some fresh strawberries for a heavenly breakfast – all acquired along Rue Lepic, wedged between the Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge but a world away from where the bus tours take people.

No matter how tempting, do NOT add Nutella to this meal!

We can’t avoid the Metro entirely today, but we do choose to walk to the Paris Opera House again rather than change lines, before boarding Line 3 in the direction of Gallieni.

We alight at Pere Lachaise – home to a Sparrow and a Door.

Pere Lachaise Cemetery

Perhaps the most famous cemetery in Paris, Pere Lachaise was created at the same time as the Catacombs were filled with the bones of earlier cemeteries, emptied to allow for urban sprawl. At the start of the 19th century, no self-respecting Paris resident wanted to be interred this far out of town. This forced the administrators implemented one of the finest marketing strategies death has ever seen: they organised for several dead celebrities (including the lovers Abélard and Heloïse) to be moved here!

We’re here to pay our respects to some of the famous, more-recent residents; the celebrity trick has worked, as Pere Lachaise now has a waiting list.

Viewed appropriately, cemeteries are beautiful spaces to visit – designed with serenity and dignity in mind, they provide a parkland filled with the most personal of monuments to those loved (as we all hope to be) at the end of their lives. Rituals have developed around some of these monuments. Will you join the legion fans who kiss the tomb of Oscar Wilde?

The glass screen was added in 2012 to help protect the sculpture; now fans kiss both!

Throw a flower to Edith Piaf, the little sparrow?

Bonus points for having her songs on your iPod and weeping while you’re here.

Or fornicate among the paraphernalia on Jim Morrison’s grave? (We didn’t see anyone doing this, but that’s the story!)

Not the best preserved grave site – riders on the storm to blame?

I’m off in pursuit of Sarah Bernhardt, the great French actress. Walk and explore – you never know who you might run into.

Does Georges Rodenbach foreshadow the zombie apocalypse?

French Canals

For lunch, we thought we’d take you for a walk along the pretty waterfront of the Canal St Martin. We catch the Metro back to Republique and head north – less than 2 kilometres (3 miles) from the endless chatter of the Louvre, here the conversation is sedate and almost exclusively en francais.

We’re on the lookout for an attractive cafe targeting the locals, not the tourists – and at Ten Belles (just off the Canal’s eastern side, on rue de la Grange aux Belles) we’ve found it. Fabulous coffee and premium sandwiches we can enjoy here, or take with us as we continue our walk.

The benefit of the Paris Metro having stops so awkwardly close together is that whenever our feet get tired, there’s likely a station nearby. It might require 2-3 interchanges, but it will take us to our next destination.

(M) Stands for either Metro or “Maybe I’ll walk another 500 Metres”

The Religion of Peace

Still looking for some peace and quiet in a city that draws 28 million tourists per year? Then get on the Metro to Place Monge, and join us in the tearoom of the Grand Mosque.

The Grand Mosque of Paris was built in the 1920s to honour the tens of thousands of Muslims who died during the First World War. A monument to peace … and peaceful it truly is.

Exterior of the Grand Mosquee de Paris

We spend half an hour wandering the gardens inside, its intricacies modelled on the famous Muslim castle complex the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Taking a seat for an afternoon mint tea, we could still be in Morocco rather than this bustling European capital.

Au Revoir, Paris

You can’t be a tourist here and not see any other tourists, but it’s certainly possible to spend an entire day experiencing Paris the way the residents do. And for our final evening, we intend to continue that experience.

There are many more streets to wander; countless cafes and bars to step inside; and returning to Montmartre after dinner, there’s an entire nightlife we can choose to immerse ourselves in.

And another bottle of french red wine to empty before we leave the apartment in the morning.

Paris – merci beaucoup!

Bridge over the River Seine

Paris without the crowds, avoiding the tourists, and loving it

French Red Wine – there’s an entire day in Paris could be spent right here!

Want to go? Need to know!

Ten trip tickets on the Paris Metro are usually a safe bet for stays of 3 days or more. You’ll love walking around Paris, and the love of walking will mean you’ll suddenly find yourselves on the far side of the city and needing to metro to the next destination.

Entry to the Grand Mosque is free; food costs are reasonable; massages increase from €15 for 10 minutes to a complete spa package for only €58.

We’ll power it all with our breakfast and coffee from Boulangerie Coquelicot, on the nearby rue des Abbesses. Scarily, I ordered the regular coffee – and I think I got you the large!

It’s worth drinking London coffee, just to make French coffee even more magnificent!

Hidden from us but just ten minutes walk away is the Sacre Coeur, the century-old basilica (that’s young!) built atop the highest point of Paris. The cloudless sky means extra heat as we make our way up the hill and through the square of artists offering us caricatures; once we reach the glistening white church we are thankful for the crisp and clear blue morning.

Sacre Bleu c’est le Sacre Coeur!

Most people ascend to the Sacre Coeur via the stairs – the streets of Montmartre are a much better option. The grand Romano-Byzantine style makes Sacré-Cœur an impressive construction inside and out; having experience two other churches yesterday, we’re more impressed to note the statue of St Joan of Arc on the exterior façade – and of course to take in both the elevated view and the people-watching.

Did you know Paris has such a power over Japanese love-birds that there is a disease called Paris Syndrome, created when the reality fails to meet the expectations. This article suggests McDonalds as a cure; we suspect that’s the last thing on the mind for this group of wedding brochure photographers.

Not as uncommon a sight as you might think!

We Promised You Nudity

and we plan to deliver, as we head (by Metro this time) to Palais Royal-Musee du Louvre.

If museums bore you, then you need to be aware that you can ‘do’ the Louvre in less than 6 minutes. At least, that’s the tongue-in-cheek world record, where the rules are solely that you have to view the ‘big 3’ – the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

At the other extreme, of course, it is actually impossible to do the Louvre even across all of the 3 days we have in Paris. Some middle ground must be found – so over the next 2 hours, let’s seize this opportunity to take in those most-famous sights (and the crowds surrounding them) and whatever else takes our eye.

Don’t mind Venus, she’s ‘armless! #louvre #dad’sjokes #killmenow

It is possible to photograph yourself and the Mona Lisa without crowds – just be patient.

A heart for Cupid and Psyche.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace – only one wing is original, can you tell which?

There’s more to the Louvre than classical paintings, of course. There’s the Ancient Egyptology

That is a Grand Sphinx!

and the architecture, both modern and classic

The Louvre’s glass pyramid from inside.

You can see why this is the Palais Louvre.

and remnants of the medieval fortress, the original construction on the site

The foundations and moat can also be accessed during your visit.

As for naked ladies and gents? We’ve got plenty of them

Follow the lady’s eyeline…hmmm…

Classic. Stylish. Nude.

And just when you think you’ve seen enough painting, sculpting, and architecture for this lifetime, we exit the Louvre for a walk through the springtime Jardin des Tuileries.

“PANTS! I forgot PANTS!”

The Sweetest Thing

Who has the best macarons in Paris? It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves since our ‘Feels Like Home in Paris‘ hosts provided a taster set of macarons upon our arrival.

What is a macaron? Ganache filled fantasticness!

We ask ourselves again as we head for lunch at Ladurée, the patisserie that’s been serving Parisians (and tourists) sweets for more than 150 years and (in some versions of history) was the site where the macaron was created; the other contenders today are:

Pierre Marcolini: Better known as a Belgian chocolatier, and my personal selection

Ultimately, the only winner is this competition … is you – as you choose from flavours that can sound more botanic, or floral, or like the inside of a liquor cabinet, than ganache-filled brilliance. And if you can’t choose a winner (even after a second round)?

Well head back to Ladurée to drown your equivocation in a Saint-Honoré Rose. We’ve ordered one for you in anticipation.

You better claim it now, or I WILL eat them both.

Kick up your Heels

Disappointed that the nudity so far has only been in marble and watercolours? Tonight offers so much more, told through the art of dance at the Moulin Rouge.

Red Light District, then and now.

There’s no doubt Nicole Kidman’s film helped reinvigorate the fame of the Red Windmill, the Belle Epoque cabaret, the haunt of Toulouse-Lautrec (and it’s a little crass to mention the Australian film, though it seems half the dancers tonight are antipodeans!). But don’t come here expecting Ewan McGregor to sweep you off your feet: tonight is a cabaret, swinging frenetically from “dancey dance” to snake wrestling to laugh-out-loud mime (the latter being a speciality exclusive to France).

And since this is a family website, we can’t show you any stills from the dancing itself – just know that you can expect wall-to-wall topless dancers for most of the numbers in the two-hour main production.

Most of our group have glowing reviews for the Moulin Rogue spectacle – and also suggest that adding on the dinner package to make it a longer experience is definitely worth the extra investment.

Personally, I found the Moulin Rouge to be the most excruciating four hours of my life. Travel is all about leaping into the world with no regrets … but if I could change one thing, I would have skipped Moulin Rouge.

Especially if I could have had another Ladurée dessert instead.

Want to go? Need to know!

Macarons are best enjoyed fresh – though the ganache filling will keep them moist even as the exterior dries a little.

Avoid the Louvre queues by buying your €12.10 ticket online (note: you have to collect this in advance, most easily from the Virgin Megastore on the Champs Elysée). Plan your visit if you wish to experience specific pieces (like the Mona Lisa) without spending the whole day wandering the wings.

Reserve your Moulin Rouge tickets online – the show plus a half bottle of champagne is €105; add dinner and attend the earlier performance from €175. Or don’t, I’m just saying.

Calling all francophiles – what are your favourite experiences of Paris? Let all of our readers know in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.

We’re staying in the Montmartre district, in the north of Paris. A city of stunning arrondissements, if you talk to five friends about where to stay in Paris you are guaranteed at least five different suggestions!

For us, Montmartre offers the same bohemian feel that made it famous at the turn of last century, and reasonably-priced apartment accommodation (we found ours through Feels Like Home in Paris).

The streets of Montmartre, with the Sacre Coeur beyond

Conveniently located near the Abbesses (line twelve) and Pigalle (lines two and twelve) on the Paris Metro (famous for having stops only 500 metres / one-third of a mile apart) we know from New York and London that the best way to experience these world cities is to ignore the underground and set forth on foot.

Getting to Know You

For the first morning of our three days in Paris, our aim is to acquaint ourselves with this amazing city. Our first stop, then, is the Galeries Lafayette on the boulevard Haussmann – a department store with a famed interior dome, that is known to locals as the best place to escape for your lunch hour. Here’s why:

View from the roof terrace

Remarkably, these sweeping views aren’t well known to fellow tourists, giving us ample opportunities to view the vista and spy the sights.

Immediately in front of us in the Paris Opera; you can spy the twin towers on the facade of the Notre Dame Cathedral; and of course, breaking through in the distance, is the most famous Parisian icon of them all, the Eiffel Tower.

From here, we continue our walk through the streets, attempting to breath it all in. We’re planning a boat cruise with Bateaux-Mouches along the Seine River, which cuts through Paris.

Loosely, the route the boat cruise takes.

The city is named after the Parisii tribe, which inhabited the islands in the middle of the Seine at the time of Julius Caesar. Drifting past, we see the modern day inhabitants – or, more accurately, the modern day visitors queuing for Notre Dame beside a statue of the French Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.

Charlemagne is the one in green.

Our boat also takes us under the Passerelle des Arts, a bridge now famous for the many locks lovers have placed here to signify their enduring relationship. (In honesty, this has become a tourist fad – you’ll see it in cities from Paris to Cologne, and even in the hills of Italy’s Cinque Terre. Moreover, local councils are forced to fund the removal of these locks lest they overwhelm the infrastructure they are attached to. On Passerelle des Arts, you won’t find padlocks that pre-date 2011 – assuming you want your love to last more than the next two years, be a sustainable tourist and avoid this cliché.)

Bridge of Lovers – Padlocks on Passerelle des Arts.

We turn, moving back past the famous museums of the Louvre and the Musee D’Orsay. In front of the Louvre, the Jardins Tuliere is just starting to show its springtime colours.

And as we sweep around the river, past the shops and streets we look forward to exploring later, the Eiffel Tower comes into view. Famously built as a temporary structure in 1889, we’re happy to admit that it’s another Parisian tourist cliché that we still suggest everyone visits at least once.

Can you ever tire of this view?

Shopping in the Golden Triangle

The shopping begins near where the boat releases us. It’s effortless to spend three days in Paris and do nothing except go shopping; for our first visit, we want to mix it up a little, and that means limiting ourselves to the best shopping in the city: The golden Triangle d’or.

The triangle is named for the three streets that form the boundary – avenue Montaigne, avenue Georges V, and the Champes Elysees. Within this pocket are the French (and Italian) names you have come to associate with haute couture – Givenchy, Chanel, Gaultier, Dior, Vuitton, and more. If your credit card is going to melt at any point during our three days in Paris, here is the likely location!

The Greatest Stained Glass Windows in the World

Time now for something slightly more pious, though just as bright as a Gaultier spring collection. Even tourists jaded by the quantity of churches on their European jaunts have to admit that nothing compares to the chapel Sainte Chapelle.

The lower chapel, where we first enter, is impressive in its own way – move past the giftshop here, and look for the Virgin Mary mural above the door: this is the oldest fresco in Paris.

But upstairs is why we are here.

Stepping into Sainte Chapelle.

These incredible windows, recently restored, tell the tale of the Old and New Testaments, through to the life of Christ and the ultimate acquisition of several Christian relics – including a thorn from Christ’s crown of thorns – by the 13th Century King Louis IX.

Most visitors seek to take a seat and absorb the colours. The more religious may attempt to follow the stories – Christian iconography can be a fascinating field.

Those of us who like big words, enjoy pointing out that the very final window tells its story “boustrophedon style” (that means, instead of reading left to right, it flows l-to-r and r-to-l as you move upwards).

The high altar in Sainte Chapelle.

Nearby Notre Dame is perhaps the better known church on Île de la Cité – by this time of day, the queue to enter looks long, but the lack of entry fee means it moves fast. It’s also an opportunity to admire the French Gothic style of the construction – distinctive on a global scale, though common to cathedrals of a similar age in Northern France.

Quite quickly we find ourselves inside, eight centuries of history distilled into key moments – this is where Napoleon crowned himself Holy Roman Emperor (1,000 years after Charlemagne); you’ve likely heard of Quasimodo, though your age will determine whether it was through Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame book or the similarly-titled Disney film.

Even after Sainte Chapelle, the stained glass of the Rose Window is breathtaking. Less obvious, but also grand, is the opportunity afterwards to spend a few moments in the park behind Notre Dame admiring the flying buttresses of its design.

The Notre Dame Cathedral’s Rose Window.

From here, it’s a leisurely walk along the waterfront to see Gustav Eiffel’s most famous creation. But we’ll need some afternoon sustenance for the journey, so we start by crossing over from the Île de la Cité to the Seine’s other island, the Île Saint-Louis.

We are search of Paris’s best known ice-cream, from Maison Berthillon. The original store is located at 31 Rue Saint-Louis en l’Île; but so popular are the sixty flavour creations that four separate stores are open here. In summer, they are easier to find because of the queues that stretch around the corner in each location – today, thankfully, there’s a much shorter wait for caramel and salted butter, lavender, or earl grey tea.

Actually, the queues are here even in March!

Le Tour Eiffel

We’ve booked tickets for the Eiffel Tower climb to coincide with sunset. Having arrived a little early, we skip the people milling around the Parc du Champ-de-Mars beneath it and cross the river instead to the Jardins du Trocadero. Here, particularly as we climb up the concrete stairs to the balcony, we have a great view of the Tower … and the city of light beginning to shine in the early evening.

Jardins de Trocadero in the foreground. You probably recognise the thing behind them!

Why climb the Eiffel Tower at sunset? Because now is an opportunity to watch the tower itself shift colour, from the silver-grey of photographs to the bronze-gold it takes as the setting sunlight envelopes it. Taking the elevator up creates a sense of being present inside history – few buildings in the world have the same effect on so many travellers.

Our first stop is the second level, best for a closer inspection of the city beneath us. It’s remarkable at this height how uniform Paris begins to look. All of those alleys of shops and ice-creams suddenly appear as matching, six-storey high buildings with white roofs.

Les Invalides (the dome) is obvious – can you also spot the Louvre, Notre Dame, or the Musee D’Orsay

One benefit is the ease with which city monuments expose themselves among the sea of white. And not just the horrible Tour Montparnasse, we can spot the Arc de Triomphe, Les Invalides where Napoleon is buried, Notre Dame where we were today, and more.

Taking the elevator to the very top exposes an even grander view. Though the structures are less distinct from our height, now 1,000 feet above the ground we feel ourselves to be the centre of a grand and beautiful universe.

The last of the setting sun disappears, in the direction of Paris’s newer (and taller) business district. And this gives us a chance to turn our attention to the older Paris, the Paris of French monarchs from Clovis to Marie Antoinette, the Paris of Renoir, Rodin and of Edith Piaf.

And as if it feels us remembering its stars, the Eiffel Tower lights erupt. Night falls on Paris, and on us high above its streets.

We are permitted to show you a photo of the lights. We can’t legally show you a recording of the light show, as it is protected by copyright!

There is much to consider as we end our evening walking along its most famous street, the Champes-Elysee. From the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde to the Arc di Triomphe this glittering strip is more 21st century neon than 19th century romance, but my goodness it’s grand to walk along it and feel part of Paris.

Want to go? Need to know!

Love Parisian fashion? Every Friday you can take a seat at a genuine Paris fashion show at Galleries Lafayette – call 09 6939 7575 in advance, though, to reserve your seats (French is not necessary – but always appreciated).

Entry to Sainte Chapelle costs €6.50; entry to Notre Dame is free.

A slightly more obscure Notre Dame moment – it was on these steps in 1450 that the Wolves of Paris, allegedly responsible for the deaths of forty people, were finally cornered and killed.